Project Management

Tutorials

ML Twelve Risks to Enterprise Software Projects—and What to Do about Them

Payson Hall, Catalysis Group, Inc.

Mon, 11/10/2014 - 1:00pm

Every large software project is unique—each with its own complex array of challenges. When projects get into trouble, however, they often exhibit similar patterns, and succumb to risks that could have been anticipated and prevented—or detected sooner and managed better. Common responses to the problems—blaming, deferring action, or outright denial—only make things worse.

TC Eight Steps to Kanban

Ken Pugh, Net Objectives

Tue, 11/11/2014 - 8:30am

Transitioning to agile can be difficult—and often downright wrenching—for teams, so many organizations are turning to kanban instead. Kanban, which involves just-in-time software delivery, offers a more gradual evolution to agile and is adaptable to many company cultures and environments. With kanban, developers pull work from a queue—taking care not to exceed a threshold for simultaneous tasks—while making progress visible to all. Ken Pugh shares eight steps to adopt kanban in your team and organization.

TE Agile Boot Camp for Project Managers NEW

Ken Whitaker, Leading Software Maniacs

Tue, 11/11/2014 - 8:30am

For a project manager, successfully transitioning from traditional project management to a more agile approach can be difficult due to the staggering learning curve. Using a combination of case studies, exercises, and best practices identified in the PMBOK® Guide, Ken Whitaker gets you up to speed on the essential fundamentals you need to effectively facilitate and lead Scrum-based agile projects.

TF Risk Management: Project Management for Grown-Ups NEW

Tim Lister, Atlantic Systems Guild, Inc.

Tue, 11/11/2014 - 8:30am

Many organizations are childlike. They blithely plan the project as if nothing will go wrong. And then, when something does go wrong, they are shocked and dismayed. Risk management is not just worrying about your project, and it is not about running away from risk. Risk management for software projects is all about when you make decisions and when you take action. How do you deal with uncertainty? When do you decide to deal with a risk while it is still just a risk, and when do you decide to wait to see if the risk does turn into a problem and manage it then?

TI Principles and Practices of Lean Software Development NEW

Al Shalloway, Net Objectives

Tue, 11/11/2014 - 8:30am

Lean software development has often been described as “better, faster, cheaper” and focusing on “eliminating waste,” but those are misnomers. Going after speed improvement and waste elimination can actually reduce the benefits you could otherwise get from lean. Al Shalloway describes what lean software development really is and why you should be incorporating it into your development efforts—whether you use Scrum, kanban, or SAFe. Al explains the mindset, principles, and practices of lean.

TQ Product Owner Imperatives for Championing Agile Projects NEW

Paul Reed, EBG Consulting

Tue, 11/11/2014 - 1:00pm

Engaged and passionate product owners balance strategic and tactical activities to ensure that the right product is built—and built right. Yet how do these product owners guide planning toward longer-term goals while also ensuring that requirements are sufficiently understood for development and delivery? Join Paul Reed as he shares techniques for setting context and collaboratively establishing a shared understanding of requirements. Discover methods to envision the product and identify the stakeholders and their value considerations.

Concurrent Sessions

BW16 Privacy and Data Security: Minimizing Reputational and Legal Risks

Tatiana Melnik, Melnik Legal, PLCC

Wed, 11/12/2014 - 4:15pm

Privacy and data security are hot topics among US state and federal regulators as well as plaintiffs’ lawyers. Companies experiencing data breaches have been fined millions of dollars, paid out millions in settlements, and spent just as much on breach remediation efforts. In the past several years, data breaches have occurred in the hospitality, software, retail, and healthcare industries. Join Tatiana Melnik to see how stakeholders can minimize data breach risks, and privacy and security concerns by integrating the Privacy by Design Model into the software development lifecycle.

BT1 Seven Deadly Habits of Ineffective Software Managers

Ken Whitaker, Leading Software Maniacs

Thu, 11/13/2014 - 10:00am

As if releasing a quality software project on time were not difficult enough, poor management of planning, people, and process issues can be deadly to a project. Presenting a series of anti-pattern case studies, Ken Whitaker describes the most common deadly habits—along with ways to avoid them.

BT5 Applying Courtship Principles: Hiring for the Long Term

Philip Lew, XBOSoft

Thu, 11/13/2014 - 11:30am

As managers, we tend to focus on improving our processes. But have you considered that good people—not processes—are really the foundation of high-quality software? Competent and skilled people—combined with good process—can consistently produce higher-quality software. When we look for a spouse, we go out on a date, then another, and another as part of an information gathering process. We collect several months or even years of information to make this critical decision. So, why do we often make long-term employment decisions with a few brief interviews?

BT6 Avoiding Over Design and Under Design

Al Shalloway, Net Objectives

Thu, 11/13/2014 - 11:30am

The question of how much design to do up-front on a project is an engaging conundrum. Too much design often results in excess complexity and wasted effort. Too little design results in a poor architecture or insufficient system structures which require expensive rework and hurt more in the long run. So, how can we know the right balance of upfront design work and emerging design approaches? Al Shalloway shows how to use design patterns—coupled with agile’s attitude of “don’t build what you don’t need”—to guide your design efforts.

BT9 Product Management: Optimizing the What to Develop

Ernani Ferrari, Mondo Strategies

Thu, 11/13/2014 - 1:30pm

Most organizations struggle with the processes that define what software they should develop, when to do it, and how it will evolve over time—all parts of the product management role and activities. Because repeatable processes have not been established and organizations cope with conflicting priorities, teams stress needlessly over day-to-day decisions. Product management requires a fundamental company-wide understanding of its goals and opportunities coupled with the discipline to optimize development and maintenance efforts.

Keynotes

K3 The Future of Agile: Dilution, Calcification, or Evolution?

Jeff "Cheezy" Morgan, LeanDog

Thu, 11/13/2014 - 8:30am

The agile revolution began more than a dozen years ago. It was started by a small band of rebels who had radical ideas, shared a common vision, and wanted to change the world by challenging the status quo. Where is that agile revolution today? Has it continued the vision of its founders? Has it stayed true to its original values and principles as set forth in its manifesto or has it been watered down to make it more palatable to the masses? Cheezy Morgan ponders the answers to these and related questions.